Confessions of a Dance Mom

I read a blog that struck a cord with me. It’s about the dreaded moment you realize your aspirations of being a soccer mom have been replaced by the reality of becoming a dance mom.

I’m the same way. I was positive I was meant to be a soccer mom. Yet there I was registering my 2 year old for dance classes because she never stopped dancing. Dance mom time is supersonic. You blink and it’s 7 years later and your little one is spending 10 hours a week in the studio and you have 20 costumes split amongst all the closets in your house. Family vacations planned around competition season and intensives.

And Sissy et al. loves every second of it! She never knew stage fright. I’m in awe of that girl. Baby et al. is now registered for fall classes…she’s two.

When I had kids I had dreams of them following in my footsteps. I thought they would for sure be soccer players. I couldn’t really imagine them doing any other extracurricular activity. After all, genetics are supposed to play a big role in that kind of thing, right?

To my surprise my son came up to me at four years of age and told me he had decided what activity he wanted to do. Proudly I imagined smelly soccer bags, tournaments, baking in the sun, freezing in the snow and screaming from the sidelines. I imagined making friends with all of the other soccer moms and bonding over stained socks and soccer balls in the house constantly.

Life always has a way of doing the exact opposite of what you want it to do. He proudly said he was going to be a dancer. Yep! A dancer. I had always…